Cruz and Rubio to remain on ballot, Broward judge rules

Michael Voeltz stands in the Broward County Courthouse courtroom in front of Judge John Bowman to plead his case against Republican presidential candidates Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as he questions their eligibility to run for U.S. president on March 4, 2016 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The judge dismissed the lawsuit brought by Michael Voeltz that wanted the candidates names withdrawn from the Florida March 15 primary ballott because he questions whether the candidates meet the definition of natural-born citizens which is constitutionally required for eligibility to be president. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) ORG XMIT: 608354667 (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

A Broward judge on Friday struck down a Hollywood voter's attempt to remove Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio from the Republican presidential primary ballot.

Michael Voeltz, 54, filed a lawsuit seeking to declare Cruz and Rubio ineligible for the presidency because, Voeltz argued, they are not natural-born citizens.

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Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father, while Rubio was born in Miami to Cuban immigrants who later became citizens. Both men, Voeltz argued, benefited from laws that made them citizens without putting them through a legal naturalization process.

Voeltz, who represented himself and is not an attorney, took a scalpel to the legal definitions of "natural born" and "naturalized," arguing that one cannot be both at the same time. "You can attain citizenship by an act of naturalization or by birth," Voeltz argued.

The issue of Cruz's eligibility has been raised during the campaign, mostly by front-runner Donald Trump, who predicted legal challenges based on Cruz's Canadian birth. The Constitution requires a president be a "natural- born" citizen but offers no binding definition of what the term means, said Broward County Judge John Bowman, who presided over a hearing in Voeltz's case Friday.

Attorneys for Cruz, Rubio and the Florida Republican Party, named as defendants in the lawsuit, asked Bowman to dismiss it, arguing that the candidates are eligible and if anyone says otherwise, it should be the U.S. Congress or the Electoral College, not a county court.

Bowman agreed, saying Voeltz made a mistake that was fatal to his case when he removed the Florida Secretary of State as a defendant. The Secretary of State's office oversees the Division of Elections and is the only body that can be ordered to remove a candidate from a ballot.

Bowman also said Voeltz, who filed and lost a similar lawsuit in 2012 challenging Barack Obama's eligibility, lacked standing to file the suit because he was not injured by the inclusion of Cruz and Rubio on the ballot.

"You can still vote for whoever you'd like," Bowman said. He did not rule on the merits of Voeltz's argument about what constitutes a natural-born citizen.

Voeltz, a registered Republican, declined to say which candidate he's supporting in the primary, dismissing the question as "irrelevant."